


An Endless Light

by gakorogirl



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Immortality, Other, Post-Canon, implied drug use (minor)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5504771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gakorogirl/pseuds/gakorogirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lloyd is ageless, now. The Tomorrow's Tea reacted badly with the magic in his blood, and he never seems to get any older.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beacon

Lloyd's leg never did heal up quite right. It had snapped cleanly when he hit the ground, and Julien had patched it up pretty well, but it's never advisable to run up a skyscraper's worth of stairs on a leg held together with cloth and concentrated power of will. Even years afterwards, the leg sent twinges up his leg when he tried to copy the feats of athletics that the other ninja could do.

And after the power of the First Spinjitzu Master had been torn out of him, Lloyd's endurance had never quite been the same. Luckily, it had slowed Morro enough for the ninja to get the upper hand, even if it almost killed Lloyd.

Lloyd was glad that he hadn't died, because then he wouldn't have been able to see his dad one last time.

After the sinking of the Preeminent, after all of the weeks of guilt- _I could have done something, it's my job to save people, why didn't I just_ stay- had slowly sunken away, Lloyd felt... sort of _empty._ He kept waking up at night and going onto the deck of the Bounty, just to look at the sky for hours. There wasn't much else to do.

Everything he ever did had been for his dad. And for the first time, late one night, Lloyd realized how much he'd given up, and he started to sob. He stayed up for hours, until the tears that had been waiting to pour out were spent.

In the morning, Lloyd came down to breakfast as usual with a smile on his face and threw a bowl of oatmeal at Kai during the inevitable food fight, before he was overwhelmed by tiny breakfast pastries (why did Zane _have_ a pastry gun in his arm anyway?)

"Get _off,_ Jay!" Lloyd laughed as he pushed Jay away, sending the skinny boy sprawling across the floor.

"These are actually really good," Jay said as he caught a bite-sized danish in his mouth. "Zane, I bet I can fit _ten_ of these into my mouth at once!"

As he cleaned the crumbs out of his hair, Cole replied, "I can fit twenty, easy." As Jay replied with something that made all the others burst out laughing, Lloyd wandered away, grabbing a few sugar cubes from the bowl on the table. Nobody noticed him leave, not even Kai.

Munching on the sugar cubes, Lloyd headed into the training room. His leg began to ache after only one round of the obstacle course, and instead he went to the punching bags. Lloyd slipped into a familiar rhythm, punching over and over again. When his knuckles began to chafe, Lloyd bandaged them and kept going, faster.

He imagined for a second that the punching bag was the Overlord- Kai said that imagining an enemy would give you more power, at least for a little while- but it didn't really work. Instead, Lloyd kept punching because he'd almost forgotten how to stop, hammering away at the bag until it finally split, sand spilling across the wood floor. Lloyd realized that his knuckles were bleeding heavily, and he went to wash them off before anyone else could see.

* * *

Later, he went out to run a few errands for his mom and a little girl asked him for his autograph. Her mother, apologizing profusely, pulled her away.

"I'm so sorry, it's just that she really looks up to you. You _are_ sort of famous, beacon of hope and all that but I'm _really sorry,"_ said the woman as she left. Someone else recognized him a few minutes later and Lloyd distractedly scrawled his name onto the brochure they were waving at him.

_A beacon of hope,_ he thought. "Sorry, I didn't get your name," he told the person with the brochure as they started to walk away. It was a youngish woman, her golden-brown eyes shining brightly. Lloyd had the feeling that he'd seen her somewhere before.

"Sir, it's Meifen," she said. "You know, you're still awfully young to be doing all this, if you'll pardon my saying so."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess," Lloyd answered with a chuckle. "I mean, I barely even remember before this whole green ninja thing."

"Tomorrow's Tea," Meifen mumbled. "It's a powerful catalyst, I've never seen it react with such a strong elemental power before."

"What?"

"Oh, it's nothing, sir!" Meifen squeaked as she hurried away. Lloyd still couldn't quite figure out _where_ he'd seen her before.

Two more people- an old man and another, harried-looking mother who had four kids that Lloyd could see and probably a few more wandering around through the mall- told him how proud they were of him, how they'd expected he'd be older, how much responsibility he'd taken and the old man mentioned that _it seems only a few years ago you were trying to invade Jamakai village._

"Sorry about that," Lloyd replied with an awkward laugh as he started heading home.

* * *

"And his voice kept cracking for the next _eleven months,"_ Nya finished triumphantly from on top of the bookshelf, out of Kai's reach.

" _Nya!"_ hissed her brother as Jay and Cole laughed. Zane didn't seem to be paying much attention, and Lloyd was only catching the end of the story as he walked in. Jay twisted around and pointed at Lloyd.

"Hey, your voice should be changing pretty soon, right?"

Shrugging, Lloyd sat down on the floor. "I dunno."

"I agree," Zane spoke up, "I estimated your physical age at around fifteen, but that was two years ago. Your voice has only deepened slightly since you were ten."

"Maybe I have to wait for my real age to catch up," Lloyd answered, and the other ninja forgot about it.

After an hour of laughter and storytelling, Lloyd was beginning to feel hollowed out again. Quietly, he went onto the main deck of the Bounty and instead of looking up at the bright infinity of the night sky, he stared down at the lands drifting below them. _A beacon of hope, for all of Ninjago. For all of the Realms, maybe,_ Lloyd thought.

_I can never stop being that for them._


	2. Asset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lloyd is too big of an asset to be allowed out of the base. You'd think with all the attention he's given someone would notice that he never gets older...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this chapter to "The Days" by Aviici- it's also shorter and has more dialogue than the other chapters.

A few more months went by, and the months stretched into seasons. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to Lloyd, unless he talked to them directly. It wasn't that they didn't _care,_ they just didn't seem to _notice._

"Why can't I go on all the missions, again?" Lloyd asked one day.

"Because everything evil tries to capture you, Lloyd, you're too big of an asset." Kai replied as he spun Nya's newest sword in a few experimental circles. "Whoa, this thing is _awesome!_ Hey, maybe you could get Nya to make you one," he added unhelpfully.

"The new way she's tempering them makes the blade really well balanced-"

"Yeah, I'll talk to her," Lloyd answered without much enthusiasm.

"Look, we'll- we'll go on a mission in a bit," Kai said, looking a bit sorry. Behind them, Jay hopped in on one foot as he pulled on his shoes.

"Give it a week or two, new supervillain, new use for your powers!" he said cheerfully before falling over onto his side. "Ow."

"Thanks, Jay."

Lloyd wandered away as the other ninja left. He really _had_ thought that he'd be able to go on all the missions from now on, since the Overlord had been defeated. It occured to him that his powers hadn't even defeated the Overlord the second time around, it had been Zane.

"I should think you'd be gone," Misako called from the bridge as Lloyd walked by.

"They didn't need me for this one," Lloyd replied. Maybe he'd go hang out in his bunk and… think of all the ways he could take over Ninjago, or something. Of course, he wouldn't ever _do_ that, but he'd started doing it when he was seven and it was still _fun._

Or listen to music, or read, or something. He figured he might dig out some of his old comic books, they must still be on the Bounty somewhere, and tt wasn't as if there was any point in training.

"Not if I'm never going out," Lloyd said under his breath as he opened the door to the bunkroom.

His mom came in almost as soon as he settled down to read, and stood at the foot of the bed.

"Lloyd,"

"Yeah?" Lloyd replied, noticing that his mom looked worried.

"How old should you be now?"

"I dunno, maybe seventeen? Eighteen?"

"Oh." Misako paused for a long time, running a hand nervously over the plait of silver hair draped across her shoulders. "Lloyd, I- I wouldn't know, since to me you should still be a little boy… but shouldn't you look older?"

Lloyd shrugged and sat up. "What're you saying?"

"I'm _saying,_ we should talk to Mystake and Meifen."

 _Meifen,_ the small, nervous woman who had spoken to Lloyd months before. He remembered where he'd seen her before- hooded and avoiding eye contact in the back of the Ninjago City tea shop.

"We probably should," Lloyd said as he rolled out of bed and landed on his feet. "Like, now."

* * *

"I just don't know," Meifen said nervously as she readjusted her glasses. Lloyd hadn't recognized her before since, apparently, she'd stopped wearing the green hood. "You didn't tell us there was going to be a lot of excess elemental energy flying around, that stuff might have a bad effect on the tea. And, if you'll pardon my saying so, the Green Ninja is practically _shining_ with elemental energy."

"Do you have any idea what the effects might have been?" Misako asked anxiously.

"Ms. Mystake will be here soon, she's worked with elemental masters before. She'd have a better idea than I would." Meifen straightened up and nodded towards the door. "Here she is now!"

Misako turned to Mystake, who looked a bit irritated at all the people in her shop. "Hello, Mystake."

"Misako? What are you doing here?"

"I assume you know my son, Lloyd. He was aged magically, using Tomorrow's Tea. We think about four years?"

"Hmmm," Mystake grumbled as she circled Lloyd. Lloyd tried to stay still as she poked his shoulder.

"Oh my," said Mystake, sounding surprised for the first time. "Oh _dear."_

"Uh- what's wrong?" Lloyd asked as Mystake raised one of his hands and began to twist it back and forth. "Can you not do that?"

"So he's the grandson of the First Master?"

"Yes," Misako said anxiously. "Is there something wrong with him?"

Mystake nodded grimly as she replied, "The Tea wasn't meant for demigods, especially ones charged with this much raw energy. I'm afraid it's affected his aging process." She looked over at Misako, who had gone very pale.

"Your son's never going to age."

_They told him it wasn't fair, they told him they were sorry. And Zane spoke to him aside, after that strained and painful dinner, and said that he would stay for as long as Lloyd wanted him around._

_But then, they just sort of seemed to forget again, as the weeks of sad glances and awkward conversation faded away, and life went back to normal._


	3. Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lloyd goes by Dragon now, as the years slip by and everything begins to fall away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing music was "Youth," by Daughter! And yes, this is the one where everyone dies. Sorry (I'm not that sorry)

Jay was the first of the ninja to die, at a relatively young age.

_Killed in a tragic laboratory accident,_ the obituary read, _Dr. Jay Walker will be given all the honors that Ninjago can bestow for his role in the protection of the-_

Lloyd stopped reading there, because his eyes had filled up with tears. He suddenly _understood_ that he was going to have to go through this again, and again, and again. His mother and his uncle died years before, and the story- to keep the knowlege of the Tomorrow's Tea secret- was that Lloyd had died shortly afterwards. He hadn't even been able to attend his own funeral, but Kai had recorded the entire procedure on one of the new Agent cameras, invented by Cyrus Borg. The Agents were amazing- they could fit on a coin, and they streamed instantly to anywhere.

Lloyd thought his funeral had been quite nice, and according to Cole the reception had good food. (Kai and Nya hadn't been as impressed with the food.)

At Jay's funeral, Lloyd kept a hood pulled over his head. People didn't even show flickers of recognition anymore, over thirty years after his "death", but at the funeral of one of the Four you couldn't be too careful.

And then Kai's funeral, and then Cole's, and then Nya's. Nya had lived to be a hundred and seventeen, and Zane estimated that she was 67% robotic by the time she gave in.

"I'd wanted to stay around as long as I could," Nya said sadly. "But you know what, now that all of us are gone you don't have to worry anymore. You can… go back and be a kid, for a while. A weird kid, I guess, but you've really earned that much."

And then she was gone.

Lloyd tried, he did _try._ He'd adjusted well, and he could understand the new Cynthia Borg technology just as well as Zane and PIXAL could (which wasn't saying too much.) He was friends with Cynthia, who was one of the few people in the world who did know who he was.

"What year is it now?" Lloyd would ask sometimes, half as a joke. And Cynthia would tell him the right answer. She taught him some more stuff that he hadn't had time to learn, what with saving the world and all, and figured out a way to use his energy powers to fuel small robotic creations. They spent hours, tinkering with the little robots, giving them spidery legs and spinning wings and lights that flashed in different colors depending on what Lloyd was feeling.

But, Lloyd just _couldn't_ pretend to be a real kid. He could pretend to be an adult, rather than a very old, old man, but he hadn't been able to be a kid, since, well, he _was_ a kid. He kept an eye on Cole's descendants (Nya and Jay hadn't had any kids, in the end, even though they'd wanted to- so Lloyd wasn't really sure if those elements would crop up again anytime soon), but eventually the Earth powers skipped a couple generations and Lloyd lost track of who was supposed to be getting the powers.

Zane tried to help, as much as he could, but his voice reminded Lloyd of the times when everything- or almost everything- had been _all right._

Then again, nothing had ever been _all right_ for Lloyd. Even since he'd been a little boy, barely old enough to form memories, he'd been in the savage atmosphere of Darkley's. And then he'd run away, failed _miserably_ at living by himself, and been given a prophecy that he could barely understand.

He'd saved his father instead of killing him, and then a year later he'd read him into the Cursed Realm. He'd gained more power than he knew what to do with, and as soon as he _stopped_ wishing that it would go to someone else, the power of the First Spinjitzu Master had been torn out of his being.

And his leg still hurt, a constant reminder of the battles against the Overlord.

After Cynthia died, Lloyd stopped talking to Zane and ignored the series of messages from both Zane and PIXAL left in his outdated CyBorg phone. He kept the phone, even though after many, many years went by, nobody could even _call_ him anymore. Cynthia had updated it so that it was charged by his personal elemental energy, and he still had a few games he could play on it when the long dark nights started to eat away at him.

He helped out, where he could. Nobody recognized him as Lloyd Garmadon, the ancient hero, but they did recognize him. Lloyd never gave out his name, he called himself Dragon instead. The dragons were all dead now.

Dragon walked across the whole world, helping out those who would accept his help. His bank account- under many names- had been gathering interest for centuries, and his old CyBorg phone could access his funds to give money where it was needed. And there were still people to be fought- Dragon supposed that that never changed.

People told him that there wasn't anything left on Ninjago, that he should hop onboard one of the new spacetime distortion cruisers and head offworld.

"This is my home," Dragon replied. "And as long as there's still people here, I'm staying."

Hundreds at a time, the people started to ship offworld, and eventually there were only a million or so people left on Ninjago.

One day, Dragon walked into a coffee shop that he liked, with glass walls so clear it felt like he was flying, and the holographic screen above the counter showed what looked like a battle. The reporter's voiceover explained that there was a vigilante group of elemental masters on Sundara Seven, fighting off the Winter Court.

Dragon stared at the screen for a long time, until a motherly woman with cybernetic implants in her forehead said to him, "Aren't they amazing! And so _young._ They must be such an inspiration to you," she prattled on, not noticing that her listener had left the room.

For the last time, Lloyd went to the Temple of Light- roped off from public view, but still almost the same as he remembered it. Then again, it had stood for thousands of years before the ninja had come there, and he supposed that it would continue to stand for another thousand years or so.

He visited a museum that had preserved the figurehead of the Destiny's Bounty- gifted to the Ninjago City Museum by Jay and Nya a millennium before- and stared at it for a long time. Then, he turned around and walked out, and he didn't stop walking until he boarded a distortion cruiser and headed to Sundara Seven.


	4. Pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lloyd calls himself the Pan, the Undying Boy. There is a new team of Elemental Masters, on a world that could almost be the one Lloyd left behind but is very, very far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGST IN SPAAAACE  
> The story referenced in this chapter is "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. LeGuin.

_There are eight of them,_ said the one survivor of the group that the Winter Court sent out to raid one of the human settlements on Sundara Seven.

_Describe them._

_Five are clearly human. Earth, Mind, Metal, Gravity, and Shadow. There are two who are not human, they are scaled and fanged like members of the Court, but smaller, and they have no wings. One of them can slow time, and the other- I am not sure._

_What of the last?_

_He looks human, but he calls himself the Pan. We have never seen him smile, or laugh, or cry. His eyes are ancient. He controls a green energy that does not match anything that the Court has seen before._

The Winter King sat back, growling deep in his throat.

_Could they help us?_ asked the Queen. Her many eyes flickered and blinked, and small silver wings stirred the air.

_I do not understand,_ replied the raider.

_Leave us,_ snarled the King. His wings rose into the air in a threatening display, and the raider bowed and ran out.

* * *

Many of the offworld settlements had equal populations of humans and serpentine, and Mesmer and Thorn went almost unnoticed. True, there were more humans than serpentine on Sundara Seven, but not by much.

Lloyd- who now called himself the Pan- rapidly established himself as the leader of this motley group of elemental masters. His memories from the distant past were sharpened by every day he spent with the Masters, and the ache in his heart got sharper, too. But he couldn't stop now, he had to keep going, and protect this new world from the huge, misshapen creatures called the Winter Court.

It wasn't hard to memorize the other members of the team. Mesmer, a Hypnobrai who has (more or less) control over time, Thorn, a Venomari who manipulates the dark energy of the universe, the master of Earth- who looks far too much like Cole, even after so many years they have the same broad chin and curly black hair- is named Brook, and the masters of Gravity and Mind (Dhamiri and Noah) used to be dating but now they hate each other, Tavra the master of Metal is the one with the glowing tatoos who smokes a green stuff called _fairy dust_ all the time, and the master of Shadow is a grumpy young man with an eye patch. He is eerily pale, but his eyes are flinty black. (His name is Penumbra, or just Umbra.)

Lloyd-the-Pan had been the unofficial leader of the team for about a year when Mesmer pulled him aside.

"Who are you, really," she asked quietly. Her eyes shone bloodred in the light of the third moon, and the Pan was suddenly worried that she might hypnotize him. He looked away.

" _Who are you?"_ Mesmer demanded. "You bear the power of _creation."_

"Energy," the Pan said defensively, but Mesmer shook her head, a forked tounge flickering angrily between her fangs.

"You are a child of the Creator," she whispered. "The humans, they forget where they came from, but the Serpentine remember. Serpentine live for a long, long time. Longer than humans."

"Not longer than me," the Pan said bitterly, and he began to talk. As he talked, the tears he'd been holding back for so long start to fall again, and Mesmer drew back in shock. He'd never laughed or cried, not in all the time he'd been on Sundara Seven, but now he is.

Shaking his head, the Pan said, "I thought it was gonna make everything better. Joining another team… but instead, it just hurts _more."_

Mesmer nodded slowly, her eyes sad. "You should tell the others," she said. And the Pan did.

When he finished his story, the other members of the team sat in silence.

"That's awful," said Dhamiri, levitating off the ground in distress. Brook rubbed their forehead and said, "You know, Pan, you could leave. If you don't want to be around us."

"It's fine," said the Pan.

"What's kept you going so _long?"_ Umbra asked. His eyes are almost pleading, and the Pan remembered that Umbra doesn't like to talk about his past. He answered truthfully,

"It turned into- like, a game, during the hard times. When I was ready to die, I tried to see how long I could keep going. I'm playing the game now," he finished in a whisper.

Tavra lit a green fairy dust cigar and began to breathe sparkling smoke out of her nose. With the cigar still clamped between her teeth, she said, "That much bad stuff shouldn' happen ta anybody. It's like, if a good thing happens t' ya the world is gonna end. Reminds me of a book."

"A book?" asked the Pan, confused. Tavra nodded emphatically, then sneezed violently as another burst of glittering smoke came out of her nose.

"Didn' ya know I like ancient book stuff?" she asked, looking around the circle. Everyone shook their heads, looking at the other members of the team.

"Elaborate," Noah finally said. "It sounds fascinating."

"'Kay, so in this ancient text thing I read a couple'o years ago, there was this city, called Omalas. And like, there was a little kid that had to be starved, an' tortured and stuff, I think? But anyway, the lil' kid had all this bad stuff happen, so that everybody else i' the city wouldn't ever have bad stuff ta happen ta them."

"Oh."

The Pan stuck around until the Winter Court was defeated for good, but then one day Noah met the other elemental masters with a note in his hands.

_Thorn, Mesmer, Brook, Noah, Tavra, Dhamiri:_

_We did it. We defeated the Winter Court. And, I'm sure you guys are going to have a lot more adventures, but I really can't stay to watch. Because I'm never going to get older, and you will. I'm really sorry that I couldn't stick around longer. Noah, you should try and take things a little less seriously. Umbra, remember that no matter what, there's always hope. Thorn, keep practicing that breath trick and I'm sure you'll be able to control the energy bursts in no time! Dhamiri, as long as you stay focused you're a great fighter! Brook and Mesmer, remember to take breaks- and I think you'll be able to do Spinjitzu pretty soon, as long as you keep practicing. Make sure the rest of the team practices, too. Tavra, you've been wonderful- I bet you're going to unlock your true potential any day now. Be sure you don't go overboard with the fairy dust, though._

_-Lloyd "Pan" Garmadon_


	5. Omelas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a story about a child who carried the whole world on their shoulders, and Lloyd stole the name. After a very long time, he goes back to Ninjago- or what remains of it.

He called himself _Omelas_ now, because the name "Pan" was a name that people knew too well, and for once in his life he wanted to help out quietly, without people recognizing him. Most of the time, he didn't give a name, unless somebody really demanded to know.

Omelas hopped from world to world, playing the game that kept him alive. He wasn't really sure why he was so intent on staying alive, not anymore. The Overlord was two thousand years gone, and the Winter Court hadn't posed a threat in decades. On a hundred different worlds, Omelas saw rocks that sang, and rivers of fire and light, and planets where the leaves on the trees glowed and lit the cities as bright as day, and planets where it rained diamonds, and planets with freshwater oceans filled with fish with skin like glass. And wonder at the beauty of creation drove away the darkness, a little.

One day, the old CyBorg phone that he kept in his bag started to ring. Omelas paused and looked down at the number, even though he didn't really need to. And finally, after centuries of ignoring it, he picked up the phone.

_Lloyd?_ It's PIXAL's voice, not Zane's. That's interesting.

_Nah, not really. Call me Omelas._

_Omelas. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, by Ursula K. LeGuin. A short philosophical work of fiction,_

_I know, PIXAL._ Omelas cuts her off before she gives him the whole synopsis. _Why call now?_

_Zane needs you,_ PIXAL says. Her voice is worried, and Omelas freezes.

_What's wrong?_

_He's becoming a little unstable. The years are taking a toll on him, Ll- Omelas. I thought if you could come home, it would help._

_You're still on Ninjago? Isn't the planet- dead?_ For some reason, Omelas feels guilty. He'd never considered that Zane might be waiting, alone, throughout all the long years.

_Yes. You should still be able to survive on the surface for short periods of time- but we are no longer on the surface._

Omelas paused, staring out the window at the moon-lit icefields outside. The sun wouldn't rise for another thirty Ninjago Standard years, and he had wanted to hang around and watch the dawn.

_Please,_ PIXAL said quietly.

_I'll come as soon as I can charter a ship,_ replied Omelas finally. He ended the call and shoved the CyBorg phone into his bag. _  
_The next day, he shelled out a ridiculous amount of money for a pilot to take a distortion ship back to Ninjago. A few people would probably wonder what had happened to him, but he didn't have any real _friends,_ he hadn't since Sundara Seven.

* * *

"I'll wait here," the pilot said. "Radio me if you find whatever it is you're looking for and you need a few more days to do your archaeology stuff… or whatever. I can wait for up to three days, and then you'll have to go back and charter someone else."

"Thanks," Omelas said as he walked away. He checked the CyBorg for PIXAL's coordinates, and as the ship took off behind him he began to run.

There was one tree left, towering over the northern wastes. There wasn't any snow, and there hadn't been for centuries, probably, but the air was noticeably colder. Omelas walked up to the tree and rapped on the side, and with no surprise he discovered that it was made of metal.

Circling around the "tree", Omelas saw that there was some kind of tarnished wreck of metal and glass laying a few yards away. He wondered if it had anything to do with Zane, and what it was. As he considered whether or not to investigate more closely, his hand brushed against a switch hidden in the pale metal trunk and a doorway opened up.

"Wow," Omelas whispered to himself as he started to climb down the winding staircase.

"Is- is- is that y-ou?" called a faint voice from somewhere in the darkness. Concentrating, Omelas summoned a wavering orb of light around his fist and raised it into the air, illuminating walls hung with dusty, old-fashioned contraptions and broken windchimes. Lowering his fist, Omelas saw that Zane was standing in the center of the floor, looking upwards at him with luminous blue eyes. It looked to Omelas like his friend was standing at the bottom of a very deep well.

"Yeah, more or less," Omelas answered as he began to run down the stairs. It took far too long for him to reach the bottom, but once his feet hit the floor he paused awkwardly.

"Uh- Zane?"

"P- P-IXAL said you go-go-go by Omelas now?"

"I've been calling myself that for eight hundred or so years, yeah." Omelas paused and looked at the glowing, pulsating orb of energy gathered around his hands. "How are you doing?" He didn't really want to ask about the staticy quality that Zane's voice had gathered.

"F-fine," Zane replied.

"You know," Omelas said as he looked around the workshop- at least, he thought it was a workshop-, "You two should really get offworld. They're estimating Ninjago's only got a few hundred years before sun death."

There was a long silence, and Omelas stood up and began to walk around. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and the only furniture he could see was a (very dusty) cot, and a desk covered in faded papers.

"Have you moved anything in here at all?" Omelas asked.

"Not for the past few years," PIXAL answered. She must have switched with Zane while Omelas wasn't looking, because now the silver figure's eyes were glowing green instead of blue.

"We've been in here for a long time."

"Oh," Omelas mumbled. "So, what do you think? About going offworld? I'd say we should head to Sundara Seven, but they've finished colonising it, it's all city now. There were these aliens, they gave me a lot of trouble. Called the Winter Court. I guess all of them are dead now. Maybe we can go to Bota Magna, it's a jungle moon. I haven't been there yet, but I hear it's nice." He was talking faster and faster, trying to fill up the silence between the three of them.

"I've seen amazing things, Zane, PIXAL. People made of light, and worlds made of fire. And planets where the cities float above the clouds, and you can swim in the air because the atmosphere's so thick. Come _on,_ Zane, my ship'll be back here in a day or two, we can go _anywhere."_

"I don't know," Zane said, his voice so soft that Omelas could barely hear it. "Couldn't we just- stay here?"

"No!" snapped Omelas. He felt bad as soon as he said it, and immediately rushed to cover up the anger.

"Zane, I'm- I'm sorry, it's just that it's not like you, to be down here in the dust and the dark, you need to come up into the light, it's really worth it, I promise,"

_And slowly, Zane's eyes brighten, and Omelas grabs his hand and leads him up into the daylight. For the first time in a while, Lloyd feels like he's doing something to really_ help _, like he's always been supposed to._


	6. Lloyd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lloyd has his true name back, now. And it's the end of the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take it back THIS is the shortest chapter in the fic- anyway, thanks for reading! Maybe drop a review? (And just to clear something up- the final line is from the episode Child's Play.)

_And so it comes to pass, that the Titanium Ninja and Omelas the Undying Child end up on the edge of a cliff on some far-off world, watching the stars go out. The death of the stars is silent, and Omelas feels like there should be more fanfare. But all there is left to do is wait. A thought occurs to him._

"Zane?"

"Yes?"

"What were their names?"

"I d-d-on't understand," Zane said. His glowing eyes dimmed a little. "Are-are-are you c-crying?"

"Maybe," Omelas replied with a sniffle. "I _don't remember, Zane. What were their names?_ I remembered- for so, so long, but I didn't want to, and so I just stopped. And now I _want_ to remember and I _can't."_ Desperately, he stared at Zane.

"Kai," Zane said softly. "You r-r-remember Kai?"

"Yeah...yeah. Fire. Red. He was nice, I don't remember much else though... Oh! I remember Cole, there was a kid who must have been his great-great-great-great-great-great- well, one of his descendants."

"Jay," Zane continued.

"I remember Jay," Omelas repeated. "And- and Nya?"  
"G-good."

They sat and talked quietly for hours, because it was time to _remember._

_Kai, Cole, Jay, Nya,_ they whispered, to remember. And Omelas began to add names, to the roll call at the end of the universe. _Cynthia. Brook. Dhamiri, Noah, Mesmer, Thorn and Tavra and Penumbra._

And when the dark and the cold began to close in, PIXAL said, "There was supposed to be a human thermodome somewhere on this planet. We can take the speeder, go find it. The settlement should be able to hold out for a while after the star dies."

"Nah," said Omelas. There were only a few stars left, now. "Let's just wait here. They don't need a hero, not anymore. And it's the end of time, PIXAL, no matter what. Inside or outside."

PIXAL nodded, and the green glow of her eyes was swallowed up by blue.

"She-she-she said to tell you g-goodbye."

They were plunged into darkness, and it became very cold. Lloyd summoned a small sphere of light into one hand. Far away, a jet of flame shot up from the settlement, trying to keep warm against the endless night.

"Good-good-bye," Zane whispered, and Omelas turned to face him.

"Goodbye, _very_ old friend," he replied, and Zane's eyes went dark. Omelas stood there for a long while, as his breath crystallized on his lips and a bone-chilling cold slipped over the land.

Omelas, who was once Pan who was once Dragon who was once a beacon of hope for sixteen worlds, remembered _everything_. And he stood up on the edge of the cliff and began to speak to the oncoming darkness, because who cared if it was weird, it was the end of the universe.

"My name," he said into the void, "My name is Lloyd son of Garmadon, and I am the one who carries the weight of the worlds on my shoulders, and I chose my path because there was no other choice."

"But I don't regret it," Lloyd said finally. "I helped a lot of people, I saw a lot of things." On the edge of the cliff, he hesitated, daring the darkness to take away the flicker of light that he held in his hands.

" _And I'm not afraid of_ you!" he shouted through numb lips. Frost was beginning to form on his clothes, stiffening the fabric.

With a small sigh, Lloyd let the rapidly shrinking ball of light go out, and sat down on the grass. As his eyes began to close, one last sentence occurred to him, and he almost laughed for some reason that he didn't really understand.

With the last ounce of his strength, Lloyd called out,

"It's not really fair, but then again... _fair isn't a word where I come from."_


End file.
